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I wrote this after thinking about a response in the "Any Interview Invites for GPA <3.3" thread.
---
This is directed at those with below-average to average numbers.
Let me first say, though, that THE IMPORTANCE OF NUMBERS IS WILDLY OVERSTATED ON SDN.
Let me say second, however, that in the aggregate numbers do not lie - that is to say, when you see that your GPA or MCAT is at or below a school's median, you (somewhat obviously) have a less than par chance at that school. If you're below their 10th percentile, know that your application fee is essentially a lottery ticket.
This brings up a key point: while most lottery tickets don't pay off, some do.
Approaching the application process from the beginning...
Do everything in your power to maximize the quantitative elements of your application. In theory, one would "like" to have a 3.7+ and a 35+. These represent "price of entry" numbers for most of the top 10/15/20/(upper-echelon) schools.
If you had those numbers, however, you wouldn't be reading a post about "Advice for the Marginal Applicant". I think of marginal applicants as the folks who are just as likely to get 0 acceptances as 5+. These are the sorry souls that wind up doing SMPs. These are people whose numbers are not getting them in nor keeping them out of most schools: numbers that do not elicit golf claps (positive or sarcastic) from AdComs - let's say something like an MCAT of 30-33, GPA of 3.2-3.5 (which implies a LizzyM of about 62-68).
And children, before you get riled up, these are not hard and fast cutoffs, nor even vaguely scientific. You'll see that this is an overarching theme of this post - there is nothing strictly quantitative nor scientific about this process. Embracing this (or at least accepting it), not venting blind impotent rage online, is the key to success and mental health.
So how does that marginal applicant work to enhance the odds that they are in the cohort of marginal applicants that winds up with an acceptance (or multiple acceptances)?
1) Have the requisite amount of direct contact with medicine. This is something on the order of 30 hours of physician shadowing in addition to clinical volunteering (with all of the highly variable settings and roles that the phrase entails) that lasts longer than one year. This is a checkbox to fill in the admissions rubric, and you can not afford to be missing any of these "must haves". Crucially, having 3000 hours of shadowing is likely of very little marginal value beyond something like 60. Put this time to other, more productive, use.
2) Stay involved during your application year. Get in to some research, take a job at a senior center, etc. etc. etc. Do ANYTHING scientifically, medically, or socially meaningful that allows you to show that gaining admission is a full-time endeavor for you, not just a punctuation mark in life. This has the added benefit of potentially generating "updates" for you to send to schools later in the season.
3) Do something you genuinely care about. I meet so many people and read so many posts asking essentially, "what should I do to game the system?". The truth is that the system is smarter than you, in aggregate. The best secondary/interview answers and LOR's come from situations and opportunities that you are genuinely passionate about. Instead of coming on SDN and asking "ED volunteer, EMT, or CNA cert?", take the time to do some genuine introspection. You may find that there is something you'd actually enjoy doing that has a tie - even if peripheral - to medicine. This is the experience that you should pursue, or create.
4) Don't be a child. This is different - importantly - than not being young. You can't help your age, but you can change your approach to life. Understand that you, as an (nearly) adult, are allowed (and should) have multiple facets to your personality, interests, and lifestyle. I'm not saying don't go out and have fun on a Saturday. What I AM saying is: cultivate a responsible public face. Learn how to effectively and professionally interface with anyone: 5 year olds, contemporaries, 50 year olds, and the elderly. Force yourself out of your comfort zone regularly and be honest with how others see you.
5) Apply wisely. This is the key… and it's not what anyone else has suggested.
Create your application budget. You have ancillary costs, primaries, secondaries, and interview travel. Hold perhaps $1500-$2K back for interview costs if you are casting a wide geographical net.
The first, and most often overlooked, step of the admissions process is early research. These are your ancillary costs. Buy the MSAR. Buy USNEWS. Read a ton of school's websites.
The purpose of this first step is to identify three broad classes of schools:
-Those you would love to attend.
-Those that you would attend.
-Those that you would not like to attend (the kind of schools that you just think "oh….um, no" about)
Notice I did not say anything about figuring out which schools match your statistics. At this point, you should be concerned with things like:
-Geography (family, SO, etc.)
-Mission (don't be one of the hundreds of lower-stat people that apply to Meharry, only to find out later than Meharry has lower average numbers because of a strong institutional mission that you have no interest in or connection to).
-Unique elements of the curriculum that speak to your past experiences and or future goals (dual degree strength, global health, etc.)
If you have more than 10 schools on your "would love to attend" list, YOU DO NOT HAVE A STRONG ENOUGH PERSONAL VISION FOR YOUR MEDICAL EDUCATION. I say this for one reason: as a marginal applicant, you will need to do everything in your power to differentiate yourself as an applicant. Your "perfect match" schools should speak strongly to your personal interests, goals, desires, and strengths, and there just can't be THAT many schools that do. If you find that this list is rather long, it is time to go back to the well and refine your personal mission statement.
(Let me digress for a moment and reinforce that this is the most important piece of advice I can give you here: the marginal applicant must have a strong and well justified - through activities and accomplishments - personal "brand". Consumer brands are built over time and with clarity and purpose. Do the same for your application.)
Apply to every school on your "love to attend" list regardless of their/your numbers (again WITH THE CAVEAT that these schools should be "brand" matches. If you are a marginal stats applicant and your 10 "love to attend" are every one - or even half of - the top 10 schools, you are delusional and have not grasped the essence of what I'm communicating to you here. Either that or you're a California applicant trying to stay close to home. In that case, godspeed.).
Figure out how much of your application budget you have left, and begin to work down your list of "would attend" schools. I suggest applying to all of them.
Again (this is broken record time): none of this has to do with the school's numbers or your own. You are applying to schools that appeal to you in literally every other dimension BUT numbers.
Have I stressed enough that this is not about numbers? Are all of you NOT applying to RFMS, Georgetown, BU, etc? Good. You absolutely CAN throw your money away with eight thousand or more fellow applicants (and if funds are unlimited, you should), but you're smarter than that. You're an informed marginal applicant.
That said, if you are like, "I am a Jesuit and I want to be a Jesuit doctor", and that's REAL, then you SHOULD be applying to Georgetown, SLU, Creighton, etc... Point being, again: you're never applying anywhere because of a stats match but because it matches your personal brand and criteria.
6) Apply early. What is early? Within a week of AMCAS opening. You have so much time to prepare for your application that there is simply no excuse in this regard. Start working on your PS months in advance. Line up your letters well in advance - this is a notorious rate-limiter.
If you are not able to finish your (strongly composed) application in time, wait a year.
7) Pre-write your secondaries. Even better, write them early enough that you have time to finish them and then revisit/edit them. Every applicant has the story of re-reading a secondary later in the cycle and going "wait, WHAT?!?!". You want to avoid that feeling AFTER the secondary is submitted.
7a) If you don't have real-world life experience (not a knock on the traditionals, just something about which one should be self-aware), have someone who hires/fires/interviews people read all of your work and give you a reality check on tone and composition. Trust me, people never get to your resume if the cover letter isn't tight and compelling. The same holds true here.
8) Do not waste any of the interviews that you land - your first one can't be "practice". This requires practice/experience. Find a resource - your school's career center, objective third parties (PI's, GSI's, etc.), and make them ask you all of the standard questions. Similarly, use the SDN interview feedback tool and troll for past questions. I had one interview that was literally straight off the page from the interview feedback.
9) Find space in your life for honest self-assessment. There are so many people on here who I can only assume are entitled, whining, know-nothings.
Many premeds live life trying to step on other people's necks just to grab the next rung of the ladder. Don't be these people. While this works for some number of people - generally those who didn't need to do it in the first place, ironically - for most it creates a vicious cycle of misanthropy and smug certainty that those below you got there because they weren't as good, NOT because your sociopathic self put them there.
Competence combined with kindness is generally rewarded. And you get to sleep really well at night.
Anyway, to wrap this polemic up: We all remember our parents telling us (in response to some perceived injustice), "YEAH? WELL LIFE ISN'T FAIR!!!".
Well guys, it both is and isn't. There's a little bit of luck involved, no doubt, but most success in life comes down to working hard, smiling a lot (and usually meaning it), and finding the sweet spot on the continuum of confident and humble.
Having a genuinely positive outlook (hard as it is - TRUST ME I get it), being kind to people even when you don't "need" to be, and trying to just generally be a good person goes so far in this world that you can't even imagine it until you start living it.
Good luck, all.
---
This is directed at those with below-average to average numbers.
Let me first say, though, that THE IMPORTANCE OF NUMBERS IS WILDLY OVERSTATED ON SDN.
Let me say second, however, that in the aggregate numbers do not lie - that is to say, when you see that your GPA or MCAT is at or below a school's median, you (somewhat obviously) have a less than par chance at that school. If you're below their 10th percentile, know that your application fee is essentially a lottery ticket.
This brings up a key point: while most lottery tickets don't pay off, some do.
Approaching the application process from the beginning...
Do everything in your power to maximize the quantitative elements of your application. In theory, one would "like" to have a 3.7+ and a 35+. These represent "price of entry" numbers for most of the top 10/15/20/(upper-echelon) schools.
If you had those numbers, however, you wouldn't be reading a post about "Advice for the Marginal Applicant". I think of marginal applicants as the folks who are just as likely to get 0 acceptances as 5+. These are the sorry souls that wind up doing SMPs. These are people whose numbers are not getting them in nor keeping them out of most schools: numbers that do not elicit golf claps (positive or sarcastic) from AdComs - let's say something like an MCAT of 30-33, GPA of 3.2-3.5 (which implies a LizzyM of about 62-68).
And children, before you get riled up, these are not hard and fast cutoffs, nor even vaguely scientific. You'll see that this is an overarching theme of this post - there is nothing strictly quantitative nor scientific about this process. Embracing this (or at least accepting it), not venting blind impotent rage online, is the key to success and mental health.
So how does that marginal applicant work to enhance the odds that they are in the cohort of marginal applicants that winds up with an acceptance (or multiple acceptances)?
1) Have the requisite amount of direct contact with medicine. This is something on the order of 30 hours of physician shadowing in addition to clinical volunteering (with all of the highly variable settings and roles that the phrase entails) that lasts longer than one year. This is a checkbox to fill in the admissions rubric, and you can not afford to be missing any of these "must haves". Crucially, having 3000 hours of shadowing is likely of very little marginal value beyond something like 60. Put this time to other, more productive, use.
2) Stay involved during your application year. Get in to some research, take a job at a senior center, etc. etc. etc. Do ANYTHING scientifically, medically, or socially meaningful that allows you to show that gaining admission is a full-time endeavor for you, not just a punctuation mark in life. This has the added benefit of potentially generating "updates" for you to send to schools later in the season.
3) Do something you genuinely care about. I meet so many people and read so many posts asking essentially, "what should I do to game the system?". The truth is that the system is smarter than you, in aggregate. The best secondary/interview answers and LOR's come from situations and opportunities that you are genuinely passionate about. Instead of coming on SDN and asking "ED volunteer, EMT, or CNA cert?", take the time to do some genuine introspection. You may find that there is something you'd actually enjoy doing that has a tie - even if peripheral - to medicine. This is the experience that you should pursue, or create.
4) Don't be a child. This is different - importantly - than not being young. You can't help your age, but you can change your approach to life. Understand that you, as an (nearly) adult, are allowed (and should) have multiple facets to your personality, interests, and lifestyle. I'm not saying don't go out and have fun on a Saturday. What I AM saying is: cultivate a responsible public face. Learn how to effectively and professionally interface with anyone: 5 year olds, contemporaries, 50 year olds, and the elderly. Force yourself out of your comfort zone regularly and be honest with how others see you.
5) Apply wisely. This is the key… and it's not what anyone else has suggested.
Create your application budget. You have ancillary costs, primaries, secondaries, and interview travel. Hold perhaps $1500-$2K back for interview costs if you are casting a wide geographical net.
The first, and most often overlooked, step of the admissions process is early research. These are your ancillary costs. Buy the MSAR. Buy USNEWS. Read a ton of school's websites.
The purpose of this first step is to identify three broad classes of schools:
-Those you would love to attend.
-Those that you would attend.
-Those that you would not like to attend (the kind of schools that you just think "oh….um, no" about)
Notice I did not say anything about figuring out which schools match your statistics. At this point, you should be concerned with things like:
-Geography (family, SO, etc.)
-Mission (don't be one of the hundreds of lower-stat people that apply to Meharry, only to find out later than Meharry has lower average numbers because of a strong institutional mission that you have no interest in or connection to).
-Unique elements of the curriculum that speak to your past experiences and or future goals (dual degree strength, global health, etc.)
If you have more than 10 schools on your "would love to attend" list, YOU DO NOT HAVE A STRONG ENOUGH PERSONAL VISION FOR YOUR MEDICAL EDUCATION. I say this for one reason: as a marginal applicant, you will need to do everything in your power to differentiate yourself as an applicant. Your "perfect match" schools should speak strongly to your personal interests, goals, desires, and strengths, and there just can't be THAT many schools that do. If you find that this list is rather long, it is time to go back to the well and refine your personal mission statement.
(Let me digress for a moment and reinforce that this is the most important piece of advice I can give you here: the marginal applicant must have a strong and well justified - through activities and accomplishments - personal "brand". Consumer brands are built over time and with clarity and purpose. Do the same for your application.)
Apply to every school on your "love to attend" list regardless of their/your numbers (again WITH THE CAVEAT that these schools should be "brand" matches. If you are a marginal stats applicant and your 10 "love to attend" are every one - or even half of - the top 10 schools, you are delusional and have not grasped the essence of what I'm communicating to you here. Either that or you're a California applicant trying to stay close to home. In that case, godspeed.).
Figure out how much of your application budget you have left, and begin to work down your list of "would attend" schools. I suggest applying to all of them.
Again (this is broken record time): none of this has to do with the school's numbers or your own. You are applying to schools that appeal to you in literally every other dimension BUT numbers.
Have I stressed enough that this is not about numbers? Are all of you NOT applying to RFMS, Georgetown, BU, etc? Good. You absolutely CAN throw your money away with eight thousand or more fellow applicants (and if funds are unlimited, you should), but you're smarter than that. You're an informed marginal applicant.
That said, if you are like, "I am a Jesuit and I want to be a Jesuit doctor", and that's REAL, then you SHOULD be applying to Georgetown, SLU, Creighton, etc... Point being, again: you're never applying anywhere because of a stats match but because it matches your personal brand and criteria.
6) Apply early. What is early? Within a week of AMCAS opening. You have so much time to prepare for your application that there is simply no excuse in this regard. Start working on your PS months in advance. Line up your letters well in advance - this is a notorious rate-limiter.
If you are not able to finish your (strongly composed) application in time, wait a year.
7) Pre-write your secondaries. Even better, write them early enough that you have time to finish them and then revisit/edit them. Every applicant has the story of re-reading a secondary later in the cycle and going "wait, WHAT?!?!". You want to avoid that feeling AFTER the secondary is submitted.
7a) If you don't have real-world life experience (not a knock on the traditionals, just something about which one should be self-aware), have someone who hires/fires/interviews people read all of your work and give you a reality check on tone and composition. Trust me, people never get to your resume if the cover letter isn't tight and compelling. The same holds true here.
8) Do not waste any of the interviews that you land - your first one can't be "practice". This requires practice/experience. Find a resource - your school's career center, objective third parties (PI's, GSI's, etc.), and make them ask you all of the standard questions. Similarly, use the SDN interview feedback tool and troll for past questions. I had one interview that was literally straight off the page from the interview feedback.
9) Find space in your life for honest self-assessment. There are so many people on here who I can only assume are entitled, whining, know-nothings.
Many premeds live life trying to step on other people's necks just to grab the next rung of the ladder. Don't be these people. While this works for some number of people - generally those who didn't need to do it in the first place, ironically - for most it creates a vicious cycle of misanthropy and smug certainty that those below you got there because they weren't as good, NOT because your sociopathic self put them there.
Competence combined with kindness is generally rewarded. And you get to sleep really well at night.
Anyway, to wrap this polemic up: We all remember our parents telling us (in response to some perceived injustice), "YEAH? WELL LIFE ISN'T FAIR!!!".
Well guys, it both is and isn't. There's a little bit of luck involved, no doubt, but most success in life comes down to working hard, smiling a lot (and usually meaning it), and finding the sweet spot on the continuum of confident and humble.
Having a genuinely positive outlook (hard as it is - TRUST ME I get it), being kind to people even when you don't "need" to be, and trying to just generally be a good person goes so far in this world that you can't even imagine it until you start living it.
Good luck, all.
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